8290541 Early investigation of post COVID trends in work-related ill-health from the UK’s reporting schemes

<h3>Objective</h3> The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of the way we interact with work and the subsequent risk of work-related ill-health (WRIH). With 5 years of post-COVID data, we may now start to investigate how trends in new cases of WRIH may have changed since 2020. Using WRIH data reported to a UK-wide surveillance scheme, we investigated change in WRIH incidence trends in reporting post COVID-19 pandemic. <h3>Material and Methods</h3> WRIH cases reported by physicians within The Health and Occupation Research (THOR) Network’s skin (called EPIDERM) and respiratory (called SWORD) schemes. Trends in WRIH incidence rates (since late 1990s) were evaluated using segmented (pre March 2020, Mar 2020 to 2024) time-series models within multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial models (ZINB). This allowed for investigation of post-pandemic trends in reporting of excess zeros (compared to pre-pandemic), and change in new cases of WRIH pre-pandemic. <h3>Results</h3> Prior to the pandemic excess zero adjusted annual trends reported by THOR for skin and respiratory disease were decreasing by -3.4%(-3.8,-3.1) and -1.8%(-2.4,-1.2) per year respectively. The inflate proportion of the ZINB indicated an increase in number of excess zeros reported to EPIDERM in 2021 (OR=2.4(0.5,12.2)) and 2022 (4.0(1.4,11.3)). No such change occurred within SWORD. Both EPIDERM and SWORD reporting experienced decreases in trends of new cases reported post pandemic, with EPIDERM seeing nearly 60% (70%,50%) decrease whereas SWORD observed an 8% (10%,3%) decrease in new cases per year post pandemic. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Early modelling of WRIH trends indicate new cases of skin and respiratory diseases may be declining at a faster rate than pre-pandemic. The potential reasons for these post pandemic differences are unclear, with additional data collection required to confirm these trends, and determine their future direction.